


Night Sky Garden

by Arillow



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Fluff, Grieving, M/M, Rewrite, Slow Burn, hanakotoba
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-01-01 05:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18329666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arillow/pseuds/Arillow
Summary: They had met only a few months before, on a rainy afternoon, and somehow become friends. Now, both Eugeo and Kirito were stuck in this death game that Sword Art Online had become, and had to fight their way out of there while also sorting out their feelings for each other.





	1. Chapter 1

September had barely just started, and even though it wasn't as hot as during the peak of summer in August, it was still a surprise when it started to rain.

 

As people ran away from the rain and the streets soon became desert, I hid away under the threshold of a flower shop. I had been caught by the rain on the way home, and now I had to wait for it to stop. I was slightly annoyed at having to wait, and was starting to consider if I should just go under the rain, when the door of the shop opened by my side.

 

A boy who looked to be the same age as me looked outside. His slightly wavy soft-looking hair was a flaxen color, and over his clothes he wore a blue apron with the name of the flower shop stitched in the middle.

 

"Are you okay? Don't you wanna come inside?" He asked me in a gentle voice, staring at me with deep green eyes. "The rain is getting stronger."

 

It was indeed, and the threshold already wasn't enough to protect me from the droplets of cold water, no matter how much I pressed myself against the wall to avoid it. However, I was a bit hesitant to accept the offer. Had the boy come out here just to invite me inside?

 

The silence extended as the boy waited for an answer, and soon the situation would be awkward. I was getting ready to run home even under the rain, but the boy just smiled and opened the door wider.

 

"Come on," He said. "You'll catch a cold if you stay here for too long."

 

A gust of cold wind blew against us at that moment. After being speckled with more cold rain, this time I didn't hesitate to rush inside past the boy. He blinked his eyes as he looked at me, and as I started to regret it thinking I had looked very stupid - he laughed.

 

"It's really cold, isn't it?" He chuckled, closing the door. "You can stay here until it stops. Do you want some coffee to warm up?"

 

"Uh no, I'm... fine..." I trailed off as I let my gaze wander around. The shop was small, but it had a certain charm to it. The sweet fragrances of many different flowers came to me, and it took me a while to distinguish one from the other. I wasn't very interested in flowers and only recognized a few of them, but even I could see that all these flowers had been cared for dearly.

 

I looked over at the flaxen-haired boy, watching as he moved behind the balcony, humming quietly to himself. The coffee machine must've been behind the balcony, because soon enough I could smell the scent of coffee coming from there.

 

It would be awkward to just stand here for too long - I didn't know how long it would be until the rain stopped. Should I say something? But even as I wondered that, I couldn't come up with anything to say.

 

As an antisocial person, I had never been good with talking to other people. I could interact with others pretty well through our computers screens as I played games - which I really loved to do -, but talking face to face with people was hard for me.

 

So being the first to say something in a conversation with a boy I had just met, was just too much for the 14 year old me. I glanced over at the boy, uneasy, but he was just calmly preparing his coffee.

 

“So, you go to the Kawagoe Middle School too.” He said, startling me. It was an affirmation, not a question. When he saw my wary expression, he smiled. “I study there too. Class 2-D.”

 

“... I’m in Class 2-B.” I muttered. So he studied in the same grade as me… I had never seen him at school, but that was probably my fault. I barely interacted with my classmates, let alone students from the other classes.

 

He poured some coffee in a blue mug for himself, and as he sipped calmly I couldn’t help but notice the small roses drawn on the mug. _He really likes flowers, doesn’t he?_

 

“Oh, I’m Eugeo, by the way.” He said suddenly, setting his mug down. “What’s your name?”

 

“Kirigaya Kazuto. You can call me just Kazuto, though.” I added, slowly approaching the balcony. “Are you a foreigner?”

 

His name wasn’t japanese at all, and now I noticed his appearance wasn’t either. Although he had some eastern traits in his delicate face, he also didn’t really look like an eastern. Maybe he was of mixed inheritage? I couldn’t place where his name came from though.

 

Eugeo made a resigned face, as if he heard that question very often. I regretted asking immediately, thinking I had upset him, but then he chuckled.

 

“Everyone thinks that.” He said, sipping more of his coffee. “But I’m not, I was born here. My great-grandfather came from England, though.”

 

“Ah.” I muttered. That explained it, then.

 

“You can call me just Eugeo, too.” He added. “Are you sure you don’t want some coffee?”

 

I stopped next to him, the balcony the only thing between us now. Despite my awkward way, he didn’t seem annoyed at all, and just kept smiling at me. When was the last time I had a friendly conversation with someone of my age?

 

“Then… I’ll accept it.” I muttered. Eugeo beamed at me and produced another mug from somewhere behind the balcony to pour me some coffee.

 

¤¤¤

 

The rain kept pouring down for a little bit over an hour, and when it stopped it was almost dark outside. I waved goodbye at Eugeo, thanking him for the coffee and for letting me stay inside, and went home.

 

We had talked a lot together, and I was surprised with myself. There was something about him that made me comfortable talking with him. He told me a bit about the flower shop, which belonged to his family - he lived on the second storey of that building with them -, and then, after he asked me about my hobbies, we ended up talking about video games.

 

Most people got bored after a few minutes of hearing me talking about it, but Eugeo seemed genuinely interested. When I told him about my excitement for Sword Art Online, which was going to be released in a few months, his eyes sparkled.

 

“I heard about that!” He had said happily. “My cousin Alice is really excited for that too, she even bought a Nerve Gear last week, to get used to it first, you know.” Then he sighed. “I was a bit interested in it, but I doubt I’ll be able to buy it during release. Buying both the game and the Nerve Gear would be too expensive to me.”

 

I gave him a sympathetic look.

 

“It’s ok.” I told him. “They’ll probably make more copies if it is successful, so you’ll just have to wait a bit more to have it.”

 

“Yeah, I guess.” He chuckled. “By then you’ll be really far in the game, won’t you? I’ll have to work hard to catch up.”

 

I almost told him, “ _I’ll help you with it!_ ” But held back in the end. Not yet… I wasn’t ready to go that far yet.

 

¤¤¤

 

The next day at school, I saw him - maybe because this time I was actually looking for him. I saw him walking out of his classroom during lunch break, and I almost called him. But then I saw he was accompanied by a blond girl, both of them talking happily about something, so I hesitated and gave up.

 

 _I can talk to him another time_ , this thought crossed my mind. But why should I? It’s not like we were friends now… We just happened to be together for a few hours because of the rain. There was no reason for me to talk to him again.

 

¤¤¤

 

Even though I had thought that, I still found myself making my way to that flower shop after school.

 

I tried to look discreetly through the glass window, not intending to go inside. However, Eugeo was tending to some flowers next to the window, so the moment he saw me, he smiled and beckoned me inside.

 

“You’re back.” He beamed at me when I entered the shop.

 

“Y-yeah… I was just passing.” I coughed to hide my embarrassment at being caught. “My house is nearby.”

 

“I see.” He hummed. He was watering the white flowers on pots near the widow, and it took me a while to remember their name - lilies.

 

“I saw you at school today, during lunch.” I blurted out suddenly, and regretted immediately. I wanted to dash away when Eugeo gave me a confused look.

 

“You did?” He asked. “Why didn’t you call me?”

 

“A-ah, that’s… You were with someone, I didn’t want to… interrupt.” I trailed off, scratching the back of my head and looking to the side.

 

“Oh, I see.” Eugeo chuckled. “Kazuto, I noticed yesterday, but… You’re really shy, aren’t you?”

 

“I’m not.” I complained immediately, but he only laughed more.

 

“Who did you saw me with at school?”

 

“Um… It was a blond girl…”

 

“Ah, that’s my cousin Alice.” He smiled. “You should have lunch with us tomorrow. She’s really nice too.”

 

I didn’t really feel like having lunch with an unknown girl - I was already bad at talking with boys of my age, let alone girls. However, I didn’t want to offend Eugeo, so I chose not to answer to that.

 

“What kind of flowers are those?” I asked instead, pointing at some small, blue flowers on the wall.

 

“Oh, those.” Eugeo smiled. “Their name is myosotis, but everyone calls them forget-me-not due to a story.”

 

And then he went on to tell me the story of the flower’s name, while he finished watering the lilies. After he was done, he offered me more coffee.

 

I usually would go straight home and play games until late in the night. However, looking at his happy smile, I couldn’t help but nod and accept the coffee.

 

¤¤¤

 

The next day, Eugeo went to my class during lunch break, and I found myself accompanying him and his cousin to the roof to have lunch with them.

 

Alice Zuberg too had an appearance that wasn’t completely eastern or western. Her bright blond hair was long, down to her waist, tied in a braid, and her eyes were bright blue. Now that I looked at them together, she and Eugeo really looked very similar.

 

I, antisocial as I was, was surprised when I found myself smiling a bit and talking with them.

 

¤¤¤

 

Alice went somewhere with her friends after school, but Eugeo and I walked home together. I couldn’t even remember when had been the last time I walked home with someone, or if that had even ever happened at all.

 

Everyday I would go home alone, walking with my hands in my pockets and my head lowered, as everyone else walked in groups chatting happily among themselves. Someone like me, who didn’t have friends and pushed everyone away, would never know what it was like to go home with a friend. That was what I thought.

 

However, Eugeo had caught up to me when I was changing shoes at the entrance hall and asked if I wanted to walk home together, since his house was on the way to mine. I was surprised, but ended up agreeing with it before I could stop myself or find a lame excuse to refuse.

 

Not that I didn’t want to walk home with him. I just didn’t know what to talk about while we walked together.

 

Fortunately, he spared me the trouble of having to think of a conversation topic by asking about SAO. When I least noticed, I had already launched myself into talking about everything I had read about it, the trailers and infos, the beta test I had participated during summer. Eugeo didn’t interrupt me not even once, and didn’t seem bored with the talk too. He kept asking me questions, as if he wanted me to keep talking.

 

When we reached his house, he smiled and invited me inside to have a coffee. And for some reason, I didn’t refuse.

 

¤¤¤

 

After that, we walked home together almost everyday, and sometimes even Alice would join us.  We would talk about basically anything, though the conversation always somehow ended up spinning back to games. Eugeo wasn’t a big fan of games, but Alice was a hardcore gamer too - which surprised me a bit.

 

“If you let her, she’ll talk to you about her favorite RPGs for the whole day,” He told me once with a tired smile, and Alice huffed.

 

“You’re the one who lets me keep talking. If you want to talk about something else, just say it then.” She then turned to me. “This guy here doesn’t understand games at all, but once I start talking about it, he doesn’t have the courage to interrupt me.”

 

“That’s not true!” Eugeo whined.

 

“Have you never played games before, Eugeo?” I asked, although I had a feeling the answer was no. And true to that, the flaxen-haired boy shook his head with a sheepish expression.

 

“My older brothers had a console when I was young, but they would never let me play.” He said. “I tried playing once, but we ended up fighting because of it so I gave up.”

 

His voice had a sad tone, as if there was more to that story than that, but I didn’t want to pry into it and look rude.

 

“Even so, you seemed interested in Sword Art Online.” I noted, and both he and Alice chuckled.

 

“That’s because this guy has this weird interest for swords.” Alice said.

 

“You make it sound like is a bad thing.” Eugeo complained, and Alice shrugged with a smile. “Computer RPGs are not really my thing, but the idea of holding a real sword… I admit it sounds tempting.”

 

“You should have stayed in the kendo club then.” Alice huffed.

 

“I couldn’t be in the club and help at the shop at the same time, I told you this before.” Eugeo sighed and rolled his eyes. I observed them bickering, thinking about how my grandfather had tried to make me practice kendo, and how after a while I had refused to continue.

 

Eugeo would probably have happily done it, without complaining. I thought so, but then he added:

 

“And anyways, we don’t fight with real swords in kendo.” His eyes sparkled, “I heard in this game you’ll be fighting with real swords.”

 

“It’s a VR, though.” I commented, but it was kind of funny watching how excited he seemed with it. I had thought his only interest were flowers, but it seemed I was wrong.

 

“And it’s a MMORPG, too.” Alice added. “A noob like you will have your ass kicked in three seconds.”

 

Eugeo blushed and poked his tongue out at her.

 

“I learn fast,” He said proudly. “You just gotta teach me.”

 

“Eh, I don’t wanna. Ask your new best friend.”

 

“You’re mean.” He looked at me. “Kazuto will teach me. Won’t you, Kazuto?”

 

“M-me?” I stuttered. “Uh… Maybe I can…”

 

Even though my answer had been vague, Eugeo smiled brightly at me as if he had just heard the best news of the whole day.

 

¤¤¤

 

Sometimes, Alice would go out with her friends instead of walking with us, so it would be just Eugeo and I. On these days, Eugeo would usually invite me for a cup of coffee in the flower shop and we talked a bit, before I went home. Sometimes we didn’t even talk at all, and I just sat in a corner of the flower shop and watched him tend to the flowers while I drank my coffee. It felt like we didn’t really need to talk; it was the first time I actually felt like that around someone.

 

¤¤¤

 

“Can we stop by the convenience store today?” I asked Eugeo once day, as we left school together. Alice wasn’t with us today again, so it was just he and I. “I want to buy a magazine.”

 

“Sure.” Eugeo agreed. “We can buy some snacks too.”

 

The convenience store near our school was a bit far from Eugeo’s home, but he happily followed me, waiting patiently as I checked through all the week’s game magazines, choosing the one with the most pages dedicated to Sword Art Online. It was about one month before the official release now, and the excitement was boiling up. I too was counting the days until I could dive back into that world once more.

 

When I looked up, I saw Eugeo had moved to a part of the store with gardening supplies. My lips curved in a tiny smile and I approached him, seeing he was looking at some flower seeds.

 

“I was thinking of buying some rose seeds,” He told me when he noticed me standing next to him. “But I think I’ll hold off for now. I want to save money to buy a blue rose.”

 

“Blue rose?” I asked, looking at the seeds. Indeed, in the package of each rose there was an information saying which color it was. There were only pink and white roses in this store, though.

 

“They’re really expensive.” Eugeo sighed. “And they’re delicate, so it’s hard to take care of them. I have some flowers in my room, but I don’t have roses yet. And since blue is my favorite color, I wanted blue ones.”

 

“I see,” I muttered. I didn’t know much about flowers, but I could see Eugeo really liked them. _So he wants a blue rose…_ I filed that information away, in case it would be useful in the future.

 

We chose some snacks, which Eugeo insisted in paying for, and I charged a couple of points in my online gaming e-wallet before we left the store. Eugeo was asking me about it as we left, and while I answered my eyes wandered over the parking lot, my gaze attracted to a group of five in a corner.

 

They weren’t there when we entered the store, meaning they had probably arrived while we were inside. The space around them echoed with hoarse chuckling, packaging of bread and snacks scattered around. Judging from their uniform, they were from the same school as Eugeo and I, but since I didn’t know them I planned on ignoring them.

 

Until I noticed one of them was earnestly looking at me.

 

He was a small boy, that looked young enough to be confused with a primary school student, if he hadn’t been using the same uniform as me. He was in a different class, but we knew each other.

 

He had also taken part in the Sword Art Online Closed Beta held during summer, and for a short time we were friends. Only one thousand people had been accepted for the beta test, so it was a sort of miracle that two people from the same school _and_ same grade had made it in. When I heard that he had been selected too, even I, antisocial as I was, went and talked to him on my own accord.

 

During the beta we would often team up in the virtual world, and got to know each other pretty well. We talked frequently to each other shortly before summer break began, but stopped once the Closed Beta ended.

 

However, I had distanced myself from him when I met him again after the second semester began. I, with my bizarre antisocial personality, had looked at him and wondered who he even was, even though I should be familiar with him… Not knowing what someone was thinking, who they really are, as soon as I had those thoughts I was unable to socialize with that person. After all, it was the same even towards my parents and little sister.

 

After he had noticed my attitude, he too distanced himself from me, even though he had looked like he still wanted to be friends in the real world, and in the official release of SAO in October. And so we hadn’t talked to each other since then.

 

Now here he was, sitting in the parking lot of a convenience store, with a group of students I could never imagine him hanging around with, giving me pleading eyes. The reason became clear when a student beside him glared at me.

 

“The hell do you want? What’re looking at?”

 

The other three frowned and glared too, uttering threatening noises of “Unhh?” and “What?”

 

In other words, he had been targeted by the rough crowd and was either being extorted by them or forced to be their errand-boy. And now he was pleading me to help with his eyes.

 

All I needed to say was something along the lines of “Let’s go home together”. But my mouth refused to move the more I stared at them.

 

Then, all of a sudden, Eugeo gasped by my side.

 

“Oh, Nishio!” He shot forward, grabbing the small boy’s wrist with a happy smile. “I was looking for you at school, you left without me? I managed to find those seeds you asked me for, let’s go home together and I’ll give them to you.”

 

“Ahn…? Ah, yes!” The boy, Nishio, let himself be pulled away from the four boys by Eugeo, and when the one who seemed like the leader started to stand up, Eugeo added:

 

“We still gotta meet Alice too, right Kazuto? You know how she is when we’re late, so we better hurry.”

 

I wanted to ask what he meant with that - Alice had gone to her friend’s house to play a game, we wouldn’t be seeing her until next morning at school - when I noticed. Eugeo’s smile wasn’t the same as always. It’s weird, because I only met him barely a month ago, but I could tell this was a different smile. It was forced.

 

 _Ah, he’s lying_ , I realized, my gaze wandering back to the four other boys. They seemed to be hesitating at the mention of Alice, and I wondered if there was a story behind it. But this was not the time to ask about it, so I merely shrugged.

 

“We should go, then.” I said.

 

¤¤¤

 

Nishio followed us while we walked back home, almost crying while he thanked us. I averted my eyes, embarrassed, muttering how I hadn’t done anything.

 

It was Eugeo. He had been the one who was brave enough to step up and intervene. I, coward and awkward, had been ready to just avert my gaze and walk away.

 

“You don’t need to thank us.” Eugeo told Nishio. “But you gotta be more careful with those guys. If Kazuto and I hadn’t passed by…”

 

“I know.” Nishio sniffed, and then looked at us. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”

 

I tensed my shoulders, even though his voice hadn’t sounded accusatory, merely curious. It _was_ true that I never befriended anyone. Certainly it would be weird for someone like me to be seen around Eugeo. Maybe I should distance myself from him too…

 

Just as I thought that, Eugeo gave a hearty laughter.

 

“Kazuto, you really are shy.”

 

“I’m _not_.” I replied lamely, but Eugeo just continued to chuckle. Nishio smiled at our interaction.

 

“We met just recently,” Eugeo told him. “He might be kind of shy, but he’s a nice guy.”

 

I turned my face away from them to not let them see my red cheeks and coughed.

 

“I’m actually surprised _you two_ know each other.” I said, trying to steer the conversation away from me.

 

“We’re in the same class.” Eugeo said.

 

“Oh…”

 

“But you seemed like you knew him already, Kazuto.”

 

“Uh…” I shrunk, trying to find words to explain, but Nishio spoke before me.

 

“We played together in the beta test for a game over summer.”

 

“Ah, you mean Sword Art Online?” Eugeo asked. “Kazuto told me about it. So you played it too, huh…”

 

“Yeah…” Nishio trailed off, and I could feel he was staring at me. I wondered if I should apologize for my attitude of before, but what should I even say?

 

“Are you going to play it next month too?” Eugeo asked, seeming completely oblivious to the mood between Nishio and I.

 

“Yes, I plan to.” Nishio looked at him and grinned. “I can’t wait for the launch!”

 

“Kazuto too won’t stop talking about it.”

 

“H-hey! That’s only because _you_ keep asking me about it.” I glared at Eugeo, who laughed again.

 

“That’s true.” He nodded. “Are you two going to stay to have some coffee?”

 

We had arrived at his house/flower shop. Through the glass, I could see a man inside the shop - his father, he had told me once. We hadn’t talked much, because the man usually disappeared upstairs to the second storey once Eugeo arrived to take his shift in the shop.

 

“Well, we bought the snacks already.” I said, with a sigh. Eugeo beamed at me and then looked at Nishio, who fidgeted nervously.

 

“If… it’s not a bother.” He muttered.

 

“None at all!” Eugeo assured him.

 

The three of us entered the shop, and Eugeo’s father greeted us. Nishio and I stayed a bit away as they talked, and soon after Eugeo’s father left us alone, like he always did. I watched as Eugeo put on the blue apron from the shop before starting to make our coffee.

 

I was starting to notice, from watching how Eugeo interacted with his father and how he talked about his siblings, that he didn’t have a good relationship with his family. It was a distant one, at best. The only one he seemed to be fond of was Alice, who was his cousin.

 

I had wondered before if he was like me - if he had difficulty to connect with other people too. But that couldn’t be it, because he had been the one to reach out to me first, in that rainy afternoon, when he invited me inside the flower shop.

 

Then the reason had to be something else. However, I didn’t want to pry into his private life. Eugeo looked easygoing, with a smile as bright as the sun, but I had a feeling that there was a side of him that wasn’t as sweet as what he usually showed off. Again, I felt like I didn’t know him at all. Like I couldn’t know what he was thinking.

 

However, for some reason, it didn’t make me want to push him away like I did with everyone else. On the contrary, it only made me want to be closer to him.

 

¤¤¤

 

From that day on, Nishio joined out group of walking-home-together. Alice had been surprised, but didn’t complain, and soon enough she was getting along with Nishio too.

 

When we left school, I would usually trail a bit behind the three of them, watching them talk cheerfully, and wondering how on Earth had I gone from a lame lonely gamer to an almost normal boy with friends in just a month. It all looked a bit surreal, and sometimes I asked myself if this was reality.

 

Eugeo always noticed when I lagged behind, and slowed down to walk by my side, a smile always on his lips as he tried to include me in the conversation.

 

He was a really weird guy.

 

¤¤¤

 

The days kept passing slowly, as if time was teasing me just because I wanted it to be November already. My birthday came and passed without much happening, aside from Eugeo scolding me for not telling him about it earlier.

 

“I would have gotten you a present if you had told me before.” He said with a pout, to which I merely stuttered that it wasn’t necessary. Even so, when the weekend came around, he, Alice and Nishio dragged me to the cinema, saying we needed to celebrate even if it was late.

 

We watched a generic superhero movie, and afterwards Eugeo and Alice spent the whole time making jokes about the main character.

 

“You two know we could’ve chosen something else to see, right?” I sighed, although I wasn’t really upset. Alice shrugged.

 

“There was nothing better to watch, though.”

 

It was October, so there wasn’t much we could do about it. Most of the best movies were usually launched during summer, when students were on vacations and could go to the cinema. Right now, there were two or three horror movies, no doubt in the spirit of the approaching Halloween, the superhero movie we watched, a romcom that I was really grateful no one even considered, and a few anime movies that none of us could care about.

 

“Next time we should stay home and rent a movie.” Eugeo suggested. “Then we wouldn’t have any problem with lame superheroes.”

 

“What’s your problem with superheroes, Eugeo?” Nishio asked. “They’re cool.”

 

“They are, but… real life heroes are not like that.” Eugeo’s voice had a weird intonation, and I couldn’t help but look at him, but he had a smile as if nothing was wrong.

 

“Real life heroes.” Alice snorted. “What, where did you see a real life spiderman?”

 

“There was one last weekend near the flower shop.” Eugeo said with the most serious voice ever, and I gave him a weird look until he said, “I think there was a con or a meeting going on nearby.”

 

Alice and Nishio laughed, and I made a weird sound that was half a laughter and half a snort. _So he means it was a cosplayer._

 

“I’m pretty sure it was a cosplay meeting.” Alice affirmed. “I heard about it from Mirai-chan. She and her brother went there.”

 

“I’m surprised _you_ didn’t.” Eugeo commented.

 

“There was an event going on in a game, I couldn’t miss it.”

 

Eugeo rolled his eyes, but I smiled, sympathetic. I understood her very well.

 

¤¤¤

 

November arrived, and with each day closer to the 6th I got more and more excited. It was almost time to go back to that world.

 

Eugeo seemed amused at my excitement, but seemed to understand it.

 

“Alice too won’t stop talking about it.” He told me. It was Saturday, just the day before the big launch of Sword Art Online. I would usually stay home and play games, but Eugeo had invited me to accompany him and Nishio as the two went to a battle raid in Pokemon Go. It was an old mobile game of augmented reality, released when I was around eight years old or so. I vaguely remembered the frenzy that took over everyone when it happened, but because it required the player to go outside, I quickly gave up on it.

 

Nishio apparently hadn’t, though, as he said he and his father played together since its launch. He had recently made Eugeo start playing too, and now the two of them decided to participate in a raid battle, because Nishio wanted to help Eugeo get better ‘mons. And now the two had dragged me along, even though I hadn’t played it in ages, Eugeo using the excuse that I needed to distract myself (“the launch is only tomorrow, you can’t sit in your room until there doing nothing”).

 

So, to not feel like I had accompanied them for nothing, I downloaded the app on my phone again. I couldn’t remember what my account was back then, though, so I had to start a new one. Even though I was sure I wasn’t going to play it much.

 

“Well, it’s a game that’s been highly anticipated by hardcore gamers ever since the NerveGear was released.” Nishio told Eugeo, his eyes glued to his phone screen as he tried to catch a pokemon. I instinctively looked at my own phone, but I had already caught everything I could in the area.

 

“I know that.” Eugeo sighed. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be excited about it, I understand why you are. But, like… There’s nothing you can do to make time go faster, right?”

 

“Well, that’s true.” I muttered, pouting a bit. I could only wait until tomorrow, but there was no way to travel to the future instantly. But even so…

 

“Let’s just do this raid and go home,” Nishio said, giving me an amused look. “Kazu isn’t looking very happy to be outside.”

 

“He’s scared he’s going to burn down under the sun.” Eugeo said, very serious. “Didn’t he told you he’s a vampire? That’s why he doesn’t like going outside.”

 

“Shut up.” I told him, even though I smiled a bit.

 

“We should at least eat something before going home, though.” Eugeo suggested. “We’re already here, after all.”

 

“I wouldn’t mind having a pizza.” I admitted. Since I was already here, I might as well try to have fun with them.

 

“Oh, there’s a raid about to start over there.” Nishio suddenly said. “It’s a level 5, though…”

 

“Do you think there will be other players around to help us?” Eugeo asked, concerned. The Level 5 raid battles were the most difficult ones, and usually required big groups to beat down the raid boss - or a few players with very strong pokemons. Since both Eugeo and I were newbies, it was basically impossible for only us three to do this one.

 

“I’ll ask in the group chat, just a sec.” Nishio said.

 

“But, you know,” Eugeo looked at me, “I’m surprised you didn’t play this before, Kazuto. I figured you would like this. Alice plays it from time to time too.”

 

“Well, the premise of having to go outside to play isn’t very appealing to me.” I shrugged.

 

“You’ll have to move around in Sword Art Online too though, won’t you?” Eugeo smirked.

 

“It’s _different_.” I muttered. “SAO is played in a virtual world, meanwhile this…”

 

“I see.” Eugeo nodded, “You are really this close to becoming a hikikomori, aren’t you?”

 

“I’m _not_!”

 

Eugeo laughed, but before any of us could say anything else, Nishio looked up at us with a bright smile.

 

“I found a group that’s going to do that raid too.” He said happily. “They’ll let us join them.”

 

We moved closer to the location of the gym, and I noticed a group of seven high schoolers, all of them with their phones in hands. Nishio and Eugeo approached to talk to them, confirming that they were the group that was going to do the raid with us, but I merely greeted them with a nod, preferring to stay close to Eugeo. Nishio and the high schoolers started talking about the raid boss, which was a legendary pokemon, but Eugeo poked at my side.

 

“Do you have any good pokemon to do this?” He asked in a whisper. “I think none of mine are good enough.”

 

“Uh…” I looked through my pokedex, but since I had just started, all of my pokemons were weak. “I think not.”

 

“Do you think it will be a problem for them?”

 

“Maybe…” Sometimes, in MMORPGs, veteran players didn’t like newbies joining their parties exactly because they lacked good equipment and experience. I suppose it was the same here.

 

Eugeo tugged at Nishio’s shirt and whispered the same question to him, but Nishio only gave us a smile.

 

“I already told them that, so it’s ok.” He gave us a thumbs up. “We’re all at the max level here and with good counters, so you two won’t need to do much.”

 

“Good… counters…?” Eugeo muttered, confused, but Nishio had already turned his attention to his phone. I patted Eugeo’s shoulder.

 

“It means they will carry us through the battle.” I translated it to him. “They probably have been playing for years now, so they must have good pokemons that can defeat the boss easily, which means it doesn’t matter if we have strong pokemons or not.”

 

“I see…” Eugeo seemed hesitant. “But is it really okay? If we’re not even going to help them…”

 

“You can opt to not participate, if you’re that scared.” I teased, bumping his shoulder, and he pouted at me.

 

“I’m not _scared_.” He complained. “I just… don’t want to be a burden to anyone.”

 

The way he said that, with such a sad tone, implied it went way beyond this game. I hesitated for a second before touching his shoulder again, giving it a gentle squeeze.

 

“They said it’s okay, so you shouldn’t worry about it.” I assured him. “Plus, if you manage to catch this legendary pokemon, you’ll already have a good one for the next raid. You can think of this as them helping you improve.”

 

“... I guess you’re right.” He smiled at me. “Thanks, Kazuto.”

 

 _I didn’t do anything, though_. I wanted to say that, but Eugeo averted his eyes to his phone, humming happily as he looked through his pokedex  - which had more pokemons than mine, since he had been playing for a few weeks now.

 

The raid battle started, and we all entered the room. I noticed there were 13 people in the room - even though there were only 10 of us here. I looked around, searching for the other three people, but no one else seemed to be playing this game.

 

“Hackers.” Nishio muttered to me, noticing my confusion. “They use a fake GPS to play without needing to some around.”

 

“How lame.” I said, even though I could understand.

 

With 13 people in the room - 11 of them with high leveled ‘mons - we were able to defeat the boss in less than one minute, even with Eugeo and I there with our weak ‘mons. After the boss was defeated, I received some rewards based on team contribution, friendship level with other participant players and damage dealt; all the rewards were then converted into pokeballs and I was taken to the catch screen.

 

Everyone chatted friendly as we each tried to catch the pokemon. Nishio cheered when he managed to get it in the third ball he threw, but Eugeo and I were having trouble with ours. Eugeo made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat when he reached the last ball.

 

“This one is harder to catch than the others.” He complained in a mumble.

 

“It’s a boss.” I reminded him.

 

“Let me help you.” Nishio offered, and Eugeo gave him his phone. A few seconds later, Nishio gave it back to him after having caught the pokemon. “Do you need some help too, Kazu?”

 

“Uh? N-no, I think I can do it…” I still had three pokeballs left. I bit my lower lip and then sighed. “You know what, I think I’ll take your help.”

 

“Kazuto, you’re cute.” Eugeo commented with a chuckle, and I felt my face heating up.

 

“What does this even _mean_?” I asked as I handed my phone to Nishio, who was also chuckling.

 

“It means exactly what I said.” Eugeo smiled at me, and didn’t say anything else, leaving me confused and embarrassed.

 

Nishio gave me my phone back after a few seconds, and I saw the screen telling me I had caught the pokemon. The high schoolers that had helped us said goodbye before continuing their way, probably to go look for more raids to do. I watched them go with a contemplative look.

 

“You know, it’s really amazing,” I said. “This game was released six years ago and still has so many players. Mobile games are really tricky regarding this.”

 

“Is that so?” Eugeo asked.

 

“Yeah.” Nishio hummed. “Some mobile games last years, while others barely make it to the first year. But I think in this case, it might be because the Pokemon franchise is really old and already had a big fanbase before the game launched.”

 

“That’s true.” This made me wonder… Back when Pokemon Go launched, it was a huge fever because it was one of the first mobile games with augmented reality, encouraging the player to interact with the outside world while playing. Now, Sword Art Online was being highly anticipated because it was the first MMORPG for the new FullDive technology. But there was no doubt that soon enough other MMORPGs would appear. Would SAO manage to survive for a long time among that?

 

Although it was useless to wonder about this now. I stored that thought away and looked at the other two.

 

“So… pizza?”

 

¤¤¤

 

We still caught more pokemons while we ate the pizza, and then on the way back home. Nishio’s house was away from mine and Eugeo’s, so we said goodbye to him before parting ways - after I promised him we would meet in SAO tomorrow. Then Eugeo and I started making our way back home together.

 

“This game is really fun, you know.” Eugeo commented. “Maybe I’ll keep playing it.”

 

“You’re on your way to become a gamer.” I teased him. “That’s how we start.”

 

“Don’t worry, I won’t become a loser like you.”

 

“That’s what we shall see.” I punched his shoulder, and he laughed.

 

“It will depend on if you will teach me how to play in SAO or not.” Eugeo said.

 

“I will.” I promised him, and smirked. “When you manage to get your own copy, in a few months from now.”

 

“Is that so…?” Eugeo hummed. “Hey Kazuto…”

 

“Hm? What is it?”

 

He looked at me and then smiled mysteriously.

 

“No, nothing. Forget about it.”

 

“Huh?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you hiding?”

 

“It’s a surprise.” He laughed and then gasped and pointed ahead. “Oh! A blue rose!”

 

He was probably just trying to change the topic, pointing to the showcase of a shop nearby. It was a flower shop, way bigger than his family’s one, and displayed in the showcase were a huge variety of different colored roses, including blue ones.

 

We stopped in front of it, and it was impossible to miss the look of desire in Eugeo’s eyes. He bit his lower lip, his eyes glued to the roses, looking as if he was fighting an inner battle with himself.

 

“Do you wanna go inside?” I asked him, and after a moment of hesitation he sighed and shook his head.

 

“I don’t have money to buy them anyway.” He said, giving me a sad smile. “Maybe in the future. Let’s go home.”

 

He reluctantly turned away from the roses, and I had no other choice but to follow him. As we walked in silence, side by side, an idea popped up in my mind, which surprised even myself.

 

When I got home, I sent Alice a message, asking when Eugeo’s birthday was. Her reply came quickly, along with a teasing question of if I was planning on doing something for him for the occasion. I decided to ignore that part, concentrate on the date she gave me.

 

 _April 10_. It was still months away... Although, on the good side, it meant I had more time to save some money.

 

I sat on my bed, alone in my room, and stared at my phone, at a picture Eugeo had insisted we took today. Remembering his longing expression while looking at the roses, I made up my mind. I was gonna give them to him for his birthday next year.

 

“That is, if we’re still friends until there…” I muttered, remembering how Nishio and I had fallen apart after summer break because of my antisocial attitude. But somehow I had the feeling that things were going to be different with Eugeo. I didn’t know how to explain, but it felt as if he wouldn’t let himself be pushed away that easily.

 

And, for now, I didn’t wish to push him away either.

 

¤¤¤

 

The next day, Sunday, November 6th, Sword Art Online started its online service at 1 PM.

 

Everything changed after that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uhm, hello lol  
> This is my first time writing for the SAO fandom! I'm really nervous that the characters might be a bit OOC sometimes, but I'll try my best to keep them in character as much as possible ;w;
> 
> I've been wanting to write this fic for a while now. It was supposed to be a simple flowershop AU, but somehow I fused it with the SAO retcon that I planned just to include Eugeo in there, so here we are lol So yeah, I will rewrite almost everything from the Aincrad arc and change lots of stuff. I'm still deciding if I will include stuff from Progressive here. Asuna will definitely be included later, idk if as a romantic interest to Kirito to compete with Eugeo or if just as a friend, we shall see. Alice too will appear more, because I just love the Rulid trio.
> 
> This first chapter ended up being just an introduction to everything, but in the next one the real death game part starts 8))) I'll try to get it out as soon as possible! See you there~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, there, I'm back! :D  
> A little thing before starting this chapter: last chapter I accidentally wrote Eugeo calling Kirito by his gamer name instead of Kazuto. It was a typo, because I'm too used to Eugeo calling him Kirito, so it's kind of hard for me to writing him calling him Kazuto ;v; I fixed it now tho, so dw (y)
> 
> Now, enjoy the chapter, this time from Eugeo's POV ;)

On November 6th, the first VRMMORPG Sword Art Online started its online service at exactly 1PM. Ten thousand people had acquired the game, with the online sales being sold out seconds after being put on sale, and the offline sales attracting huge lines of people who had queued up for days. 

 

However, on that same day, the ten thousand people who dived into that world were turned into prisoners in a death game.

 

¤¤¤

 

I stared at the package Alice offered me, completely speechless, and then looked back at her face.

 

“Are you  _ serious _ ?” I asked, because I had to make sure.

 

“I am.” She shoved the Sword Art Online package in my hands, and I hesitantly grasped it. “Consider it an early Christmas present.”

 

“But… why?”

 

“Because you obviously want to play it with your new friend.” She smirked at me, and I felt my face heating up a bit. “Plus, it’s the first time I’ve seen you interested in a game since that fight with Soichi when we were eight. I want you to play this with me too.”

 

“Alice…” 

 

I was about to leave to go meet Nishio and Kazuto - we were going to play Pokemon Go outside for a while - when Alice arrived. She dragged me to my room and gave me the game she had just bought, after spending a good part of the day on a line with her friends. They couldn’t buy it online, since it sold out in seconds after being put on sale, so they had to go to a offline store, and the lines were  _ huge _ .

 

I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she had bought a copy for me too.

 

“You didn’t have to.” I muttered.

 

“Stop the whining and just accept it.” She rolled her eyes as she sat down on my bed. “As I said, I wanted to play with you now that you’re interested in the same game as me too. So it’s not like I’m doing this only out of the goodness of my heart. You’re going to have to buy your own NerveGear, though.”

 

I nodded weakly and sat down next to her, the game package on my lap.

 

“Wasn’t this expensive, though?” I asked. “I… I’ll try to pay you later…”

 

“Didn’t I say you can consider this a Christmas present? You don’t pay for presents people give you, Eugeo.”

 

“I mean, yeah, but…”

 

“If you really want to repay me, then join my guild in the game.”

 

“G-guild?” I had no idea what that was.

 

“Yes. It’s a player group. I’m going to form one with my friends.” She grinned. “You can invite Nishio and Kazuto too.”

 

Even though she mentioned Nishio, she gave Kazuto’s name a different intonation, as if to make him stand out. I averted my eyes, embarrassed.

 

“I can ask them.” I muttered, and looked back at her. “You’re really serious, right? I won’t be giving you this back.”

 

“That’s my exact goal, you dummy.” She punched my shoulder. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be a present.”

 

I bit my lower lip, gripping the package in my hands, and looked at her. For her to go out of her way to give me this, it must mean she  _ really _ wants to play with me. I thought back to all the times she tried to get me interested in her games; even though I would always listen to her talk about them, I never wanted to play them with her. And now someone who I’ve met for barely two months had managed to get me interested in a game when she couldn’t in years.

 

I felt a knot forming in my throat, but managed to give her a smile.

 

“Thank you, Alice.” I whispered. “I’ll definitely play this with you too.”

 

“Good.” Alice patted my shoulder. “Now, weren’t you gonna go out with those two?”

 

“Oh, right!” I stood up immediately, leaving the game on my bed. “We’re going to search for some raids to do in Pokemon Go. Don’t you want to come too?”

 

“No, I’ll pass this time.” Alice stood up too, waving her hand. “I have to meet some friends now.” She looked at me. “You better get your NeverGear soon. The server will launch at 1 PM tomorrow.”

 

“I know.” Kazuto had been talking about it for the whole week. Normally I would be bored with so much game talk, but it was kind of sweet seeing how excited he was for this game.

 

¤¤¤

 

I almost told him, “ _ Hey, Alice bought a copy of the game to me. Let’s play together tomorrow!” _

 

However, for some reason, I decided against it. I wanted to imagine what would his reaction be when he found me in there.

 

He would be so surprised. I smiled thinking about it.

 

I bought my NerveGear on Sunday morning, after managing to convince my parents to give me some money. They probably only gave it to me because Alice had already bought me the game, I thought. Soichi made an ugly face at me when I arrived home with it, but I just ran to my room and locked myself in there, refusing to stay near him in case he wanted to start a fight.

 

Soichi was older than me by only a few years, and we had never gotten along well. We used to fight all the time when we were kids, and he was really good at lying so he would always pin the blame on me even when I didn’t do anything. After a while, I learned to keep my distance from him.

 

_ Hopefully, he won’t try to barge into my room while I’m playing _ . I thought, and then grimaced. Soichi maybe wouldn’t, but mother definitely would if I didn’t go have dinner in time. I had to remember to log out before that.

 

Alice would be meeting some friends in the game, and although she had invited me to join them, I refused. Instead I called Nishio, telling him I had gotten the game and asking him to meet me there. I would meet Alice there later, but first I wanted to play a bit with Nishio and Kazuto.

 

¤¤¤

 

I met with Nishio near the town’s gates. I only recognized his avatar because he had described it to me before we both dived in. He was a tall, strong guy with long dark-blue hair, looking like a protagonist of a shounen anime. I had to stifle my laughter, thinking back to how different this looked from the real Nishio.

 

But I too had a different appearance, since we could all personalize our avatars.

 

“Nishio?” I called out to him, and the shounen protagonist looked at me and smiled.

 

“Here I’m Aries,” He told me. “It’s bad manners to use the real name in game.”

 

“R-really? But wait, what about me? I’m using my real name!” I hadn’t thought about that when I was prompted with the screen asking me for a username. I pouted when Nishio laughed.

 

“Well, that’s too bad then,  _ Eugeo _ .” He sounded a lot more confident here, though I could guess it was because under the mask of that avatar it was easier to hide his weaknesses. Maybe that was why he and Kazuto liked these games so much, I thought. For just a few hours, they could pretend to be someone else.

 

It was about 3 pm, and the server had been open for a few hours now so there were a lot of people in the town. Nishio himself had been there since it opened at 1 pm, but I had dived in a bit later because I wanted to finish my homework first. When I told him this, Nishio chuckled.

 

“You’re such a good student.” He sighed. “I’ll have to do my homework when I go back too.”

 

“That is, if you do go back in time.” I said. “I have a feeling you and Kazuto are going to spend a good part of the night here.”

 

“Ahaha… Well…” He scratched the back of his head, giving an embarrassed laughter. I shook my head, smiling. Nishio and Kazuto were hardcore gamers, after all.

 

“So, what are we going to do now?” I asked. Nishio had told me that he and Kazuto had agreed to meet at 6, so we had three hours to do anything else until there. I actually wanted to meet Kazuto immediately, to see his surprised face when he saw me there (or rather, his avatar’s surprised face), but there was nothing I could do about it. Right now Kazuto was probably fighting monsters somewhere in the fields just outside the town, and I doubted Nishio would want to search for him.

 

“Mmm… We could get some decent gear and go farm some mobs.” Nishio suggested.

 

“F-farm… mobs…?” I repeated, and Nishio gave me an exasperated smile.

 

“I’ll explain everything to you.” He promised, “Let’s first find new gear.”

 

He dragged me all around the town after the best shops so we could buy good swords and armor, and lots of other stuff I didn’t know were necessary. We formed a party (after he explained to me what that was) and then he went around accepting quests from NPCs before we finally left the town.

 

It turned out that “farm mobs” simply meant going out of the town to fight monsters over and over to get a certain item. In this case, Nishio wanted to both grind EXP points and get items to sell in town so we could have more Col (the currency in the game) to buy better gear. Thinking of how much we had to do just to get good gear made me tired instantly, but I dragged myself after him nonetheless.

 

We soon found out that I was really  _ terrible _ at this game. As much as I found it fun to wield my own sword, activating the so called Sword Skills was harder than I thought it would be, and even though Nishio tried to help me I couldn’t understand a single word of what he said.

 

“Honestly,” He sighed after a while. “Eugeo, you really suck at this.”

 

“Sorry.” I grunted, pouting. We had been out in the fields trying to kill monsters for hours now, and both of us were getting tired at this point. It was mostly my fault, since I was holding us back with my lack of skills. “I didn’t think this would be so hard.”

 

“No, it’s not hard at all. You’re just really bad at it.”

 

“Shut up.” I punched his shoulder as he laughed. “It’s because you’re bad at teaching me. Kazuto would be a better teacher.”

 

“How cruel.” He poked his tongue out at me. “And what have I told you already about using our real names here?”

 

“Well, I don’t know his player name though.” I grumbled, still upset I hadn’t thought of choosing a different name before. I wondered if I could make a new account with a different name later…

 

Nishio crossed his arms and hummed.

 

“Well, if he’s still going by the same name he used in the Beta, it will be Kirito.” He said.

 

“Ki...rito…?” I repeated.  _ Kirito _ . I tried to associate that name with Kazuto, but I could only imagine a random faceless avatar that didn’t look like him at all. “Huh… I’m gonna have to get used to it.”

 

“You’ll be calling him that soon enough.” Nishio assured me, patting my shoulder. “Hmm, we’ve been here for a long time, huh? It’s almost 5:30, soon enough we’ll have to go meet him. Do you wanna start heading back to town?”

 

“Sounds good.” I agreed, excited to finally get to meet the Kazuto of this world.

 

It was just as we were heading back to town that it happened.

 

The moment everything changed.

 

¤¤¤

 

I stared at the sky - no, the bottom of the second floor, still in complete shock and unable to utter a single word. I didn’t know how to react to what had just happened. All around me, people started to panic, yelling and cursing, crying and despairing. What was supposed to be a simple game had just turned into our prison.

 

While Nishio and I were heading back to town, we were suddenly teletransported to the town’s plaza, and soon noticed all other players had been too. Before everyone’s confused eyes, the creator of this world, Kayaba Akihiko, appeared and announced we weren’t allowed to log out anymore. We were imprisoned here until we cleared all 100 floors of this game. But if we died here - if our HP bar reached zero, we would die in real life too. That was what Kayaba said.

 

My body was frozen, and all I could think about was  _ I want to go home _ . However, there was no going home now. We had to clear the game if we wanted to leave but…  _ 100 floors… _ And we are only in the first now. How long would it take to clear all of that? Could we even do it?

 

“Eugeo!” I almost jumped in the air, startled, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Nishio - his real self now, instead of the handsome shounen protagonist avatar of before - gave me a concerned look. “Eugeo, calm down. We can’t panic now.”

 

“B-but…” I stuttered and then shut up, bracing myself and trying not to panic.

 

“We have to find Kirito.” Nishio told me. “And Alice. She’s here too, right?”

 

“She is.” I muttered, feeling even more scared. Both Alice and Kazuto were here, and if their HP bar reached zero… I shook that thought away.

 

Nishio was right, I couldn’t panic now. We had to find Kazuto- Kirito, and Alice.

 

“Let’s split up and look for them.” Nishio suggested, taking a look around the plaza. “There’s a lot of people here, but if that man brought all the players to this plaza then they  _ must _ be here somewhere. Let’s find them and then meet up in that shop near the gates. You remember, that one were we bought the potions?”

 

“I do.” I nodded.

 

“Let me add you as a friend first, though.” Nishio opened his menu and soon enough a window appeared in front of me - a friend solicitation. I accepted it. “If you find any of them, send me a message. Do you know how to do it?”

 

“I’m not stupid.” I remarked, and Nishio smiled a bit.

 

“You’re not.” He agreed. “Remember, Kazuto is probably going by Kirito here. Don’t go calling our his real name for everyone to hear.”

 

“Alright.”

 

“And  _ don’t  _ leave town alone.”

 

“Yes, father,” I said rolling my eyes. “Are you done?”

 

“I’m just worrying about you.” Nishio pouted.

 

“I already said I’m not stupid. Now let’s go look for those two.”

 

He nodded and then we turned our backs to each other and dashed away.

 

¤¤¤

 

It was late into the night when Nishio and I met up again in front of the shop near the gates. He was waiting for me with Alice and another person who was vaguely familiar. I took a few seconds to recognize him as one of Alice’s friends. She had said she was going to meet her friends here before we logged in... I wondered where the others were.

 

“Eugeo!” Alice rushed to me, a look of worry in her face as she hugged me. “I’m so sorry!”

 

“What… are you apologizing for?” I asked, confused, and she pulled away to stare at me with tears in her eyes.

 

“It’s my fault that you’re stuck here now.” She said, miserable. “If only I hadn’t bought the game for you…”

 

I blinked, surprised, because I hadn’t even thought about that yet, but now that she said it…  _ It’s true _ , I thought, but at the same time I couldn’t find it in me to blame her for it.

 

“It’s true you bought it for me,” I said, “But I was the one who chose to log in. I was the one who wanted to play. That responsibility is mine alone, and not yours. Don’t blame yourself, Alice.”

 

“Eugeo…”

 

“The boy is right, Alice.” Said Alice’s friend. I wasn’t acquaintanced with all of them, but I was familiar with their faces from seeing pictures of them together. This one was a tall, thin boy with a long pale purple hair. He frowned at me and crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t need to feel guilty at all, because all of this is that guy’s fault.”

 

“That guy” probably referred to Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of this game.

 

“More important than that,” Nishio said, “Eugeo, did you find Kirito?”

 

I shook my head, my shoulders slumping.

 

“No sign of him,” I sighed. “Didn’t you see him anywhere?”

 

“No… Alice says she didn’t either.” Nishio made a concerned face. “What should we do now?”

 

“We need to regroup with the others,” Alice said. “Eldrie and I had been fighting together when we were transported to the plaza,” She gestured to the purple-haired boy, “But we still don’t know where Bercouli and Fanatio are.”

 

“They’re probably together too,” Eldrie said, “And they must be looking for us.”

 

“Yeah,” Alice nodded, frowning. “And now we have to look for Kirito too.”

 

“This is just some speculation,” Nishio said quietly, “But I think Kirito might not be in this town anymore.”

 

“Eh?” I looked at him wide-eyed. “W-what do you mean?”

 

For a moment I feared he was going to say Kazuto was already dead, but his answer was different:

 

“He was a beta tester, remember?” He said, lowering his voice, “Look, people are panicking now, but once they start to calm down, everyone will take off to the hunting grounds surrounding this town. If what Kayaba said is true, then there are thousand players in this town now. It takes a while for the monsters to respawn, so if a lot of people decide to go hunting at the same time…”

 

“There won’t be enough monsters for everyone,” Alice completed, muttering. “So you’re saying?”

 

“He probably left for the next town already,” Nishio said, “Where there will be less people and more monsters to hunt.”

 

“That… would make sense.” Alice agreed, but frowned. “However, you said he was going to meet with you, right? Would he just leave on his own instead of waiting for you?”

 

“That’s right!” I nodded. “Ka- Kirito wouldn’t leave a friend behind like this.”

 

Nishio sighed, scratching the back of his head and looking to the side.

 

“I don’t know,” He muttered, “Maybe he thought he wouldn’t need to wait for me, since I was a tester too. Kirito… When we played the beta test, he was a solo player. We partied together a few times, but he was never in a group for too long and he never joined any guild. Even if we played together for a bit here, I’m sure he would still be a solo player. That’s why… I don’t think he would wait. He would definitely move to the next town.”

 

We all fell silent after that. I didn’t want to believe that Kazuto would leave us behind like that - that he would leave  _ me _ behind like that. Then I had to remind myself that he didn’t know that I was here, since I had never told him, wanting to make it a surprise.

 

_ But would he care even if he knew? _ A little voice whispered in my mind. I tried to push that thought away immediately. It hurt too much, thinking on the possibility of him abandoning me.

 

“It’s late,” Alice said at last, “Let’s find an inn to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll go back to looking for the others, and if we don’t find Kirito we’ll proceed to the next town as well as soon as we regroup with Bercouli and Fanatio.”

 

I nodded, tired, and looked up to the sky - no, the bottom of the second floor, disguised as the sky. Kayaba had said many people had died already for being forcefully disconnected by their families on the other side. I thought about my own family, and how I was pretty sure mother would disconnect me if I didn’t go have dinner in time. Nothing had happened to me yet, though, so had my family heard of the news? Do they care?

 

My chest hurt, and I pushed that thought away too.

 

¤¤¤

 

I woke up early in the next morning. For a moment, I was confused when I saw my surroundings and didn’t recognize the place I was at. This wasn’t my room.

 

Then the memories of the previous day came crashing down on me like a wave - the announcement of our imprisonment, the search for Kazuto and Alice, not finding Kazuto anywhere. We had all headed for the same inn, and this was the room I had rented for myself, a small square with just enough space for a bed and a desk.

 

I curled up in a ball, bracing my knees and closing my eyes. I wanted to leave this place. Not because of my family - I had the impression that they wouldn’t care much about what happened to me aside from being annoyed by the trouble it would bring them. But because I missed what I had on the other side. Those days coming home from school with Kazuto and Nishio. Staying in the flower shop with Kazuto as we talked about random things. My flowers… I almost cried when I thought there would be no one to take care of the irises in my room now.

 

“How pathetic,” I scolded myself. I had no time to think about flowers now. I had to find Kazuto, make sure he was okay, even if… Even if he didn’t want to form a group with me.

 

I got up from the bed and left the room. I sent Alice and Nishio each a message telling them I was going to look for Kazuto and then left the inn. It was just six in the morning, the dawn just starting to break, and there weren’t many people in the streets. In the previous night, people had panicked for hours. Now it seemed everyone who could had rented a room at an inn, maybe too tired after the despair that settled in last night; and maybe there were some people who had made their way to the next city already too.

 

I thought of Nishio’s words of last night, and sighed. If Kazuto really had left already…

 

I calmly made my way to the city’s gates.

 

Maybe it was stupid of me to leave the town alone, considering how I was still a beginner - how was it that Alice called? A “noob”. But I didn’t want to wait much longer. Any second here was a second I could spend looking for Kazuto.

 

I crossed the gates and left the safety of the Starting City - a little message appeared in my vision to remind me of that. I didn’t stop, though, walking further away from the town.

 

I didn’t get much further before I heard someone calling my name. Stopping, confused, I looked behind me.

 

“Ni-- Aries?” I gasped, surprised, as I saw him run to catch up to me. “What are you doing?”

 

“I should be the one to ask you that!” He wheezed when he stopped near me, bending over with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

 

“... To the next town.” I muttered.

 

“Alone?”

 

“I… I didn’t want to bother anyone.”

 

“And you told me you were not stupid.” He shook his head and straightened himself up. “Didn’t you stop to think it would bother me and Alice if you died, you idiot?”

 

“... Where is she?” I asked.

 

“She is going to look for her friends.” Nishio sighed. “I told her I was going with you to the next town. We’re going to meet up there later after she finds her friends.”

 

I averted my eyes, embarrassed. I didn’t know how to answer to that.

 

I had been sure that insisting on searching for Kazuto so early would annoy them all. I didn’t want to trouble anyone.

 

And yet…

 

“So?” Nishio raised an eyebrow at me. “Are we going or not? One way or another, we should move, because standing still here will just attract mobs to us, and we should avoid fighting for now, at least until you learn to use the Sword Skills.”

 

“Alright.” I whispered, at last. “Let’s go, then.”

 

Nishio smiled and nodded, before walking ahead of me. I watched him for a second before following after.

 

¤¤¤

 

Fortunately we encountered few monsters on our way, and Nishio took care of most of them. I felt bad about not being of much help, but every time I tried to say something, Nishio would just smile and say:

 

“You help more by staying away from danger.”

 

It was frustrating, not being able to fight. I promised myself that, as soon as we arrived in the next city and found Kazuto, I would start practicing the Sword Skills.

 

“Are we still far?” I asked as we started moving again after Nishio defeated the last monster. We had entered a forest a while ago, and the path was very confusing, almost like a maze.

 

“Not much.” Nishio told me. “As soon as we cross this forest we’ll reach the village.” He then made a worried face. “We just have to be careful with the monsters around here. They’re not  _ too _ dangerous, but some of them have a few traps that can get you killed if you’re not smart.”

 

“Then it’s good you have me here with you,” I said, and laughed when Nishio elbowed me.

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Ahaha.” Laughing, I avoided another elbowing from him. “Oh gosh, do you think Ka- Kirito is okay without me?”

 

“Listen here… He’s not  _ that _ stupid.”

 

“So you’re insinuating he is a bit stupid, huh? I’ll let him know that.”

 

“You-” Nishio shut up and looked away with a frown. “Did you hear that?”

 

“Hear what?” I asked, but Nishio wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. He pulled out his sword, his eyes fixed on a spot ahead of us.

 

Nishio cursed under his breath.

 

“What is it?” I asked nervously, but my question was answered when a cursor appeared in my vision ahead between the trees, just a few seconds before the monster appeared to us.

 

My eyes went wide. What appeared before us was a monster that looked like a plant - if plants had mouth and teeth. It was one meter and a half tall, maybe more. The cursor above it was almost purple; the monsters I had seen before all had a red cursor, so I figured this one having a purple one probably wasn’t good news.

 

“It’s… it’s okay.” Nishio said, probably more to himself than to me. “It’s just a Little Nepent.”

 

“ _ Little _ ?”

 

“This is a common one, so we won’t have trouble with it.” He stepped ahead. “Stay back, I’ll kill it in one second.”

 

I watched nervously, but he seemed to have no trouble getting rid of the plant monster, despite its vines that it waved around and used to attack. When he was done, he turned to me with a grin.

 

“I told you, it’s ok.”

 

“Says the one who cursed when he saw the monster before.” I sighed, and Nishio gave me an embarrassed smile.

 

“That’s because this monster…” He paused, looking over my shoulder, and I looked behind nervously just to see another plant monster approaching. Nishio cursed again. “Eugeo, move back!”

 

“I… I know it!” I was behind him in the blink of an eye, putting distance between the monster and me. As I watched, I saw another one approaching the first one. “Nishio, can you take care of  _ two _ ?”

 

“I can.” He said, but he didn’t sound so sure.

 

“Maybe we should run?” I suggested, watching as he raised his sword getting ready to attack.

 

“We might get ambushed by other mobs if we run aimlessly.” He told me before rushing against the plant monster.

 

I had never played MMORPGs before, but I heard Alice ranting a lot about mobs and how awful it was when you got cornered by a lot of them. Back then I didn’t understand half of what she meant with that, but now I was learning it in the worst way possible.

 

As I watched Nishio fight the two Little Nepents, another one appeared from our left, and when he turned to that one, another two appeared again. I equipped my sword and raised it, ready to step in and help, but Nishio yelled at me.

 

“Stay back!” He didn’t even glance at me, but he probably guessed I wanted to help. “You’re only going to get yourself killed if you come here!”

 

“But…!”

 

I was frustrated, watching him struggle against the monster. Just as he finished the last one, another appeared from his right, and he turned to slash it instinctively. However, there was something different about that one. There was something dangling from about its head - a red sphere, swollen as if about to burst.

 

Nishio cursed loudly when he saw it, but he had already activated the Sword Skill, so there was no stopping it now. His sword made a vertical arc, slashing the monster from bottom to up, and cutting the red sphere in a half. The second it happened, a loud _ BAN _ ressounded around the forest, and a green fume started spreading from it, with a really bad stench.

 

Nishio backed away from the monster, coming to stand near me, his face pale and terrified.

 

“We’re screwed.”

 

“What… What was that?” I asked nervously.

 

“That Little Nepent… The one with the seed, it’s the trap monster I told you before,” He said, “If you cut the seed-”

 

“Like you just did,” I noted, and he glared at me. “What?”

 

“It’s going to attract a lot of Little Nepents to this area. It will be impossible to escape this.”

 

Even as we talked, I could see all around us the red cursors appearing from behind the trees - in front of us, to our left and right, and even behind us when I looked over my shoulder. The plant monsters started appearing in my field of vision as they made their way from between the trees, their vines swaying threateningly.

 

“Can’t we run?” I asked nervously, turning to press my back against his and raise my sword. He didn’t tell me to stay away this time, and there was no way I could do it too.

 

“I just said it’s  _ impossible _ .” Nishio’s voice was weak and rough, as if he was on the verge of a panic attack. “They’re way faster than they look, and even if we manage to outrun them, we might still run into other monsters on the way.”

 

“... So this is it, huh?”

 

This was where we were gonna die. Alone in a forest surrounded by plant monsters. I thought back to Kayaba Akihiko’s words last night, that if our HP bar reached zero then our brains would be fried and we were gonna die in real life. Really, this was just my luck, the first time I try to play a game and I end up dying for real.

 

My hands were shaking, and I gripped my sword harder in an attempt to make them stop. As I watched the monsters approach us, I felt my limbs freezing, and I wondered if I would even me able to move.

 

However, Nishio’s voice broke me out of my panic state.

 

“It will be ok.” He said, even though he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than to comfort me. “Let’s just try to stay together so we don’t get attacked from behind. Eugeo, attacking without Sword Skills will still do damage, even though it’s little, so don’t worry about it. Just try to avoid taking damage as much as you can.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Let’s get out of this and go find Kirito.”

 

Right… Kirito. Kazuto. I still wanted to see him, talk to him, if he was even still alive at this point. I remembered when I met him in that rainy afternoon. Why had I even called out to him back then…? I couldn’t remember now.

 

_ If you hadn’t met him, you wouldn’t be here now _ , a small voice whispered inside my head, but I pushed that thought away. If I hadn’t met him, I would still be alone and clinging to Alice because I had no one else. I didn’t want to regret meeting Kazuto. Even if I ended up dying here, at least I wasn’t alone anymore.

 

So I raised my eyes to the Little Nepents in front of me, and raised my sword. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t activate the Sword Skills. As long as I had this sword in my hands, I would still fight. Even if I was scared, I would fight.

 

That’s what I thought, but my determination quickly washed away when the Nepents were close enough to attack. They were way taller than me, and up this close the rows of pointy teeth and the long vines seemed threatening enough to make my legs tremble.  _ I can’t fight this thing, _ this thought appeared in my mind.

 

I hadn’t even been able to defeat the blue boars around the Starting City, how could I defeat a huge plant monster like this?

 

Even with these thoughts swirling in my head, I managed to raise my sword and slash against the nearest Nepent. As before, I wasn’t able to activate a Sword Skill, so there was no light effect and the damage the monster took was way too low. I managed to avoid direct attacks from the vines, but they still grazed me, and fear wracked through my body when I saw my HP bar whittling down.

 

But I couldn’t freeze now, because if I did, then I would be dead for sure. A small part of me wondered, isn’t it futile though? Fighting… It’s not like I can win… However, my body still moved.

 

A few times, I managed to activate a Sword Skill on pure luck, but that alone wasn’t enough to guarantee me the upper hand in the fight. The HP bar in the corner of my vision was already in the yellow zone, slowly reaching the red zone. How long would it be until it ran out completely? Under my own bar, but smaller, was Nishio’s HP bar, since we were in the same party. He still had a bit more HP than me, possibly because he could defend himself way better.

 

I lost sense of time - we could be fighting for hours, or just a few minutes, I couldn’t tell. But at some point, just as my HP entered the red zone, Nishio finally turned to me.

 

“I’ll take over from now on!” He practically yelled at me. Even though his own HP was close to entering the red zone too, he moved ahead of me, defending against the attacks of the five remaining Nepents attacking me, and slashing at the closest one. “You stay back and use a healing potion!”

 

“A-alright!” I managed to choke out, stepping back. As quick as I could, I opened my menu and materialized a healing potion. As I drank it, I looked behind to see that, somehow, he had managed to defeat all the Nepents that were attacking him. I looked ahead, seeing him fighting, and allowed myself to feel hopeful. Maybe we could win this. From the other twenty monsters that had ambushed us, only five were left now. We could defeat them.

 

My hopes were crushed in the blink of an eye, though, when I watched one of the vines sweep against Nishio’s feet, knocking him down. He yelled as he fell, but he didn’t have time to get up before the five Nepents were on him, attacking him without mercy. In just a few seconds, his HP bar reached the red zone and beyond, until it was completely drained.

 

_ NO! _ I wanted to scream, but my voice was caught in my throat. My body was completely frozen in shock, and I could only watch as Nishio’s avatar glowed and shattered in a thousand small polygons before he could even utter another sound.

 

My legs gave in and I fell on my knees to the ground. The remaining monster's turned towards me, but I didn’t have the energy to even feel fear.

 

Nishio was dead. His HP bar had reached zero and his avatar had been destroyed. If what we heard last night was true, then right now his brain would receive strong electromagnetic pulse from the Nerve Gear, thus being destroyed and killing him in real life.

 

But was that even true? Maybe Kayaba had been bluffing, and Nishio would be alright. My mind refused to accept the idea that Nishio was gone for good now.

 

_ Well, I suppose I’ll find out soon _ . Was what I thought as the monster's surrounded me. In a matter of seconds I would be dead soon, so I would know then.

 

I closed my eyes and braced for the attack, but they never came. Instead, there was a distinct sound of slashing, and I opened my eyes to see the fading light of a Sword Skill crossing the Nepent just in front of me. The monster, cut in a half, shattered and disappeared, and the other four turned towards the direction from where the Sword Skill had come.

 

Somebody was standing there. My blurry vision couldn’t accompany the movements as the person charged ahead against the Nepents that turned to attack them. My brain couldn’t process the fight happening in front of me, but soon enough the four monster's were killed, and it was all over.

 

“Are you alright?” The person asked, approaching me slowly. It was a boy, I noticed, and the voice sounded familiar. I blinked my eyes, realizing it were tears blurring my vision, and focused on the boy bending over me. He took a look at my face and his dark eyes widened, his mouth opening in shock. “What…  _ Eugeo? _ ”

 

More tears spilled from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks, when I realized whose was this familiar face I was staring at. I thought back to Nishio, killed just a few seconds before he appeared.  _ We were so close to him… _

 

I reached out towards my friend, and, even through his shock, he reached out to me too, holding my hands. And as I clung to him, I whispered his name.

 

“Kazuto.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooo and they meet again ;w;
> 
> I originally planned to have Alice save Eugeo instead of Kirito, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted it to be Kirito to find him, so here he is hhhhh  
> (Alice will appear again later tho, so dw ;) and yes, her game name is Alice too ~~I was too lazy to think up of a new name for her~~ , but she and Eugeo will be the only ones using their real names here.)
> 
> The fighting didn't come out as I imagined, mostly because I suck at writing fighting/action scenes, but I hope it turned out nice enough. (It was mostly this fight that delayed this chapter so much ahah ;; orz)
> 
> Hopefully the next chapter won't take this long to come out... I think... ;w;  
> See you there!

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://dreamersthings.tumblr.com/) & [Twitter](https://twitter.com/theuglyfairy)!


End file.
